Irish pub in Oakland? Sláinte!
Irish pubs exist outside of time. Kind of like the way elderly grandparents seem to small children, they seem to have been born old: Their wrinkles, their crustiness, their slowness seem not so much acquired as intrinsic. Irish pubs all pretty much look the same, down to the fonts on their facades.
This was more or less my initial reaction to Sláinte, a new Irish pub near Oakland’s Jack London Square. New Irish pub — is that an oxymoron? Don’t Irish pubs have to have just always … been there?
Sláinte — “cheers” in Ireland, pronounced SLANchuh — comes to us from partners Jenny Schwarz and Jackie Gallanagh. Schwarz, also a co-owner of the excellent restaurant Hopscotch, is in charge of the drinks. Gallanagh is the chef and, crucially, from Ireland. Proof of authenticity: As a teenager, she worked in a chip shop.
This provenance notwithstanding, Sláinte bears marks of Bay Area modern: craft cocktails, Fort Point IPA, a grilled peach salad. Of course there’s fish and chips, but the malt vinegar (purists, take a deep breath here) comes in a
spray bottle.
“When you dump it out of a bottle, the food gets so soggy,” Schwarz says of the controversial vessel. She’s quick to add: “If someone really wanted to drown their fish and chips in malt vinegar, we have bottles in the kitchen.”
Schwarz brings to Sláinte the same smart, understated cocktail style she’s perfected at Hopscotch. “The truth is that cocktails just aren’t really an Irish thing, period,” she admits. “But if I was gonna do an Irish pub, I was gonna do an Irish pub with good cocktails.”
Tequila may not strike you as especially Celtic, but Schwarz’s Bitter Lemon drink (Tequila, cucumber, Fever Tree bitter lemon soda) nods to Schweppes Bitter Lemon, a popular mixer in Ireland. “Cocktails” in Ireland often consist of a shot, an ice cube and a little bottle of soda mixer passed across the bar to you. But this is Oakland; the bartender mixes it for you.
The Red O’Hanlon combines Irish whiskey with sweet vermouth and bitters: a manhattan in a different accent. The Spot of Tea riffs on the classic Bee Sting, with a British Isles reference of Earl Grey-steeped vodka. More tart than sweet, its lemony high note overpowers its mint and honey. (All cocktails are $11.)
Guinness is poured correctly here — two turns, first in the tap handle’s faster setting, then in the slower setting. The stout arrives with such a precise white head, hovering plump just above the brim, that you might mistake it for some kind of craft nitro coffee stout if you didn’t know any better.
Similarly, if you didn’t know any better, you might expect the house whiskey here to be Jameson, or even Bushmills. But it’s Powers — and Schwarz feels very strongly about that. “Jameson is actually really expensive for what it is,” she says. Despite the United States’ apparent insatiability for Jameson, Powers was the longtime bestselling whiskey in Ireland until recently. It’s richer and toastier, if a little more rustic and rough-hewn than Jameson.
If it’s Jameson you seek, you might consider trying the Jameson Caskmates Stout ($10), finished in barrels seasoned with stout beer, or Jameson Cooper’s Croze ($14), aged in virgin American oak, used bourbon barrels and Sherry barrels.
Whiskey-wise, though, you’d still be better off without Jameson. Trade up for the fruity, single-pot still Green Spot ($14), or the lush, velvety Midleton Very Rare ($16). If you really want to ball out, try Redbreast’s nutty, irresistible 21-year-old single pot still ($24).
Irish whiskey — like Irish pubs, perhaps — these days seems to lack the sexiness of its Scottish, Japanese and Kentuckian counterparts. But I maintain that its sex appeal is no less powerful, just more demure. Where scotch and bourbon can be loud and rowdy — smoky palate bombs, assaulting with peat or caramel — Irish whiskey is often quiet, clean, subtle. (Disclaimer: I can’t stand Laphroaig.)
It makes sense that Schwarz, who offers lots of Japanese whiskeys at Hopscotch, should be drawn to these spirits. “Irish and Japanese whiskeys are an interesting corollary,” she says. “There’s a sort of refinement to them both.”
It’s a great focus for a bar menu. But is Sláinte, as its website suggests, an “authentic” Irish pub? Or are Gallanagh’s Irish roots negated by the fact that the malt vinegar comes in a spray bottle?
If it offers better drinks, and cleaner floors, and a less soggy way of eating fish and chips than your average crusty pub, isn’t that a good thing?
Or is that native crustiness, impossible to engineer, precisely what makes an Irish pub?
I don’t know. But on a recent Sunday afternoon at Sláinte, something amazing happened.
Three musicians — a banjo, a fiddle and a guitar — set up in a corner of the bar and started to play Irish music, casually, as if they were sound-checking before a performance. But the performance never came. A mandolin joined a half hour later, then another guitar. A few empty-handed folks sat down and started singing. By the end of the afternoon the ensemble must have been 15 people strong, young and old, Irish and not, all crowded around a few tables in the corner. It wasn’t for us. It was for them.
This was a céili, I later learned — a jam session, a house party. It happens on Sundays and Thursdays at Sláinte. It gave the impression that the bar, despite having been open only since April, was a longtime gathering spot for a community. A haunt. A place with regulars.
Maybe that makes it authentically Irish.
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob